City Spy: ECB’s festive card is hardly a scream

Thursday 18 December 2014 13:32 BST

The Christmas card from the press team at the European Central Bank this year is very bleak.

It looks like a woman caught in a spider’s web, while clutching a giant worm. The title of the work, by Danish artist Kathrine Aertebjerg, is Captured and Free. Could it be some kind of coded cry for help? Perhaps they should have sent out Edvard Munch’s The Scream instead...

Where the flock is Asda’s six-bird treat?

Asda hosted a Christmas dinner for retail hacks this week, serving a three-course feast of its food that included its star Christmas centrepiece — a six-bird roast. A bargain, Spy thought, at £40. But the supermarket may want to have a word or two with its internet bods because there’s no sign of the roast on its website. Perhaps Waitrose can help out?

James on form

Dixons Carphone boss Seb James was on sparkling form yesterday as he revealed the company’s latest set numbers. Asked whether his typical shoppers headed to his stores on Black Friday, James couldn’t resist pointing out there wasn’t the same rioting at his Currys PC World stores as elsewhere. (He meant Tesco and Asda.) He also said there wasn’t a demographic of Black Friday customer that stood out - no “rampaging group of toffs”. Spy wonders how rampaging toffs came to mind. It is probably coincidence that James, David Cameron and Boris Johnson were members of a certain Oxford University group that specialised in that sort of thing. Asked if his stores typically get rampaging toffs, James suggested we check out his Fulham branch.

Neville’s out of nick and straight into spinning

It's a welcome back to the media fold for Neville Thurlbeck, the former News of the World chief reporter jailed for six months for phone hacking.

Thurlbeck, who pleaded guilty to illegally accessing voicemails, shared a cell in Belmarsh with Andy Coulson, the Prime Minister’s ex-press secretary. Now Thurlbeck is going into spinning himself as director of communications for the new Retail Ombudsman.

Intended to settle disputes between consumers and stores, the new independent service, headed by Dean Dunham, opens its doors on 2 January and has 2995 retailers signed up so far.

Also due early next year is Thurlbeck’s memoir, Tabloid Secrets, which promises more revelations of life at the Screws.